‘Allied’ Featurette: Marion Cotillard and Robert Zemeckis Discuss Finding Humanity in Their War Story — Watch

How do you ground a sweeping war epic? Find its heart.

In Robert Zemeckis’ sweeping war epic “Allied,” stars Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard are tasked with turning a film that’s broadly about the calamity of war — and, boy, is there calamity in this one — into an intimate love story.

Set during the waning days of World War II, the film follows Pitt’s high-ranking RAF officer Max Vatan as he teams up with Cotillard’s charming Marianne Beauséjour, a French resistance fighter known for getting the job done. While completing a dangerous mission in North Africa (hello, “Casablanca”), the pair fall in love, a complication that they literally take home when the job is done.

Zemeckis’ latest film hasn’t done much to hide its big twist — that Max’s bosses eventually come to believe that Marianne is a German spy — but “Allied” is also concerned with the relationship between the pair that exists way beyond the world of spycraft.

That’s apparently an element that was very important to both Zemeckis and his stars, and in an exclusive featurette from the film, Zemeckis and Cotillard discuss how they found that kind of emotion and humanity in their lavish spy film. Check out our exclusive featurette below.